


the edge of an eclipse

by Bloodsbane



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 15:55:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20048668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bloodsbane/pseuds/Bloodsbane
Summary: A look at the nosk encounter from The Knight's perspective.





	the edge of an eclipse

**Author's Note:**

> First off, obviously, I love Hollow Knight. This is my first fic for it, but I adore the game and I'm wildly excited for Silksong.
> 
> I'm also excited for a new Hollow Knight zine going into production, one that's taking applications soon! You can find more information on that [here!](https://huntersjournalzine.tumblr.com/)
> 
> The topic of the zine got me excited about HK again, and I'm interested in applying to contribute both art and/or writing. So, this fic ended up being an outlet for my hype about the project as well as a potential example of my writing, since I didn't already have anything HK related to offer. 
> 
> It's a brief look at the nosk encounter, which I found to be one of the most effective moments/bosses of the game (that eerie first sighting, the great building of tension, that awesome but TERRIFYING transformation from lure to true form...) Consider this an exercise in trying to craft a voice for the little knight as well. It's hard to write a character for someone with... well... not very much character. But then it's just up to interpretation, I suppose, and that can be loads of fun. 
> 
> Please enjoy! Oh, and if you'd like a bit of music to suit the mood, [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OApa5w1TZA8) is very good and I listened to it a few times while typing this out.

It sees you first.

Deepnest is a catacomb of cobwebs and dead-ends, and you’ve already gotten lost. You're making your steady way along a small tunnel when suddenly, there's a ledge leading down. The light of your small lamp tries feebly to push at this oppressive darkness, but can only scrub away so much. Yet here, it's just enough for you to see-

It's across from you, through a gap in the wall. Just a glimpse, but you can see enough. White bone. Tattered cloak. The kingdom above you, where water falls and the world is an endless shimmer, is like a city of mirrors. You recognize your own eyes.

There have been others. All of them dead, and hollow.

This one does not look hollow.

You take a step; it does not move. The lamp bobs, wavers, pale light swinging. Half of its face becomes hidden, but still somehow there is light. You can see it. Bright burning orange, from within the edge of one dark eye. Glinting at you like the sun writhing behind an eclipse, a sliver of fire curled around the moon and casting it in absolute dark. 

There is something, here, and you don't know what it is, but you let yourself fall down the pit and away. You walk. Wait, check. You don't see it again. You wish you could tell if it was following you. But Deepnest is made of eyes - many, many eyes, eyes that can see you without a little lamp. You move on.

.

.

.

It sees you again, later, when you're making your way out. You've just killed another corpse creeper. Its long limbs are broken now, still drenched with thick orange and black of the husk bully’s organs. It bleeds out as you remove your nail. 

There's more light here, pale blue, filtering down. You catch sight of it standing above you, and this time when you draw close, it runs. Something in you makes you follow. You don't know what it is, this weight, this push, and you don't quite trust it, given where it has led you on your journey so far. And yet, you follow. 

It draws you into narrow darkness. Something is different. The gravel underfoot feels dead, not a single dirtcarver to be heard scuttling beneath. The air and shadows here are stale. The bodies are all empty.

You pause at the husks. The creature never strays too far. You know it is waiting. When you stab the empty shells with your dream nail, you hear whispers of their yearning, confusion, fear, regret. Their soft red memories get swallowed up by dense, hungry black.

At last you emerge in something like a chamber. Ahead of you, the creature stares. It waits. It waits. Your own mirror image. It wants. 

Then the thing wearing your face begins to break apart.

The sound it makes is a horrible one, and you know it well. It's the voice of your nail when you swing it into something hard; the sound of meat tearing; exoskeletons collapsing, fracturing, crunching, splitting. In perfect harmony is a splitting screech. You witness your own head twist and pull apart from thorax. 

You watch it grow, deep pitch body snapping open, twitching, sharp, with that hot writhing orange sun encased in black, and you know that it is hungry. Above and beyond, a decoration of corpses, suspended ornaments, sucked dry. 

Yet as the creature stretches ever more, taller, more twisted, towering above you, in the brief moments before it comes for you, your only thought is a strange one. Strange, because you tend not to have them in the first place.

You think of that eclipse, the one you saw before, in the dark when your lamp light failed. You think about the husks, hollow, empty of all but final, fragile thoughts. Here is a creature that wore your face, and you saw yourself full of it, that burning light, so hot and orange like fire, like the sun, like hunger. This creature is hungry. 

You think of the dense weight inside you. Wonder if it looks like this. Another lost kin.

You draw your nail. 


End file.
